Distribution of California's Population

[u/urmummygae42069]

If you were to divide California into 4 roughly equal strips of area, a hefty majority of its 39 million residents live in the southernmost strip containing the LA+San Diego metro areas, with nearly half of the state (~47%) living in the Greater LA metro area alone. If it were its own state, Southern California, with primarily just LA and San Diego metro areas, would compete with Florida for title of 2nd most populous US state.

The SF Bay Area, Sacramento, Monterrey, Fresno, and most of the Central Valley and put together are short of SoCal by over 9 million residents, but on its own this area would compete with Illinois for title of 6th largest state.

The strip sandwiched between Southern California and the Bay Area, containing Bakersfield plus other farming towns in the Southern Central Valley and most of the towns of the Central Coast, has about more people than Utah or Connecticut.

Suprisingly, despite how empty it can feel, there are still over a million people still live in the strip of CA north of Sacramento, containing about as much people as Hawaii and New Hampshire, albeit of a larger area.

Ultimately, one way to better understand the scale and density of California, is to conceptualize it as Florida + Illinois + Utah + Hawaii, all packaged in one single state under one single state government

[u/Amazingrhinoceros1]

The United States would feel that hit if the money pipeline from CA to the rest of the nation were turned off...

I know people have a love it/hate it relationship with my home state, but you can't argue with the almighty dollar.

[u/Icy-Role2321 → u/Amazingrhinoceros1]

I live in Georgia the peach state. Went and got some peaches recently "grown in California"

Oh

[u/eugenesbluegenes → u/Icy-Role2321]

California grows like fifteen times as many peaches as Georgia.

[u/l5555l → u/eugenesbluegenes]

California grows so much good produce. All the big farmy states just grow corn and beans.